Half of the adult population admit to being hooked on their smartphones

Smartphones have become so ubiquitous that a third of adults now feel the need to check them within five minutes of waking up in what experts are calling a “landmark moment” in the development of the devices.

So dependent are people on their mobiles, 85 per cent of adults have consulted their smartphones within the first hour of the day and 34 per cent of adults – 49 per cent of those under 24 – feel the need to check their phones within five minutes of waking up, according to research released by Ofcom.

Asked by the broadcast regulator if they were “completely hooked” on their phones, 61 per cent of under-24s and 48 per cent of all adults agreed they were.

A report by the regulatory body, said 2014 was the year in which the smartphone overtook the laptop as the favourite device for getting online. “What we have got is a landmark moment in the development of these devices,” said James Thickett, Ofcom’s director of research at the unveiling of the regulator’s annual Communications Market Report. Only 12 months ago, the laptop was twice as popular as the phone for accessing the Internet.

Gadgets and Tech News in Pictures

Gadgets and Tech News in Pictures

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New iPhone 6s rose gold

Apple has released a bright pink new iPhone 6s — likely the only way that you’ll be able to tell that someone has the new handset. The company released the new phone with much fanfare, but almost all of the changes — a new camera and pressure-sensitive display — were on the inside. The only new noticeable addition to the phone’s look is the very pink rose gold colour, and a tiny “S” on the back. The new handsets will be released on September 25

2/99
iPad Pro

Apple has launched a huge new iPad, which it hopes can bring the tablet to offices and designers. But it unveiled it with an Apple-designed stylus — an idea that was famously mocked by late Apple founder Steve Jobs

Reuters

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Apple TV

Apple has introduced the new Apple TV

Reuters

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Apple Pencil

Apple has introduced the new Apple Pencil

AP

5/99
Samsung Gear S2 smartwatch

Much was made of Samsung's announcement of the Galaxy Note 5 and the Galaxy S6 Edge+ at a New York conference, but the company also released a short teaser for their answer to the Apple Watch - the Samsung Gear S2. The previous iteration of this watch was the Gear S - a fairly bulky device with a curved screen, that was more a small smartphone that attached to your wrist than a real smartwatch. However, based on the teaser, the S2 looks much, much more elegant.
It actually looks like a real watch, with a circular face and a metal case and band - which may be optional, as it is with the Apple Watch

Samsung Mobile/YouTube

6/99
Google's Project Sunroof

Google has unveiled its latest major new product, Project Sunroof, which aims to make it easier for people to install solar panels in their homes. Project Sunroof, which has already launched in the US cities of Boston, San Francisco and Fresno, is Google's effort to make solar power simple and understandable. Simply by entering your address into Project Sunroof's website, Google can show you how much usable sunlight you get per year, which parts of your house get the most sun, how much room you have for solar panels, and most importantly, how much money you would save by switching

7/99
Apple car is definitely being built

Apple is definitely working on a self-driving car and is further along with the project than had been previously thought, according to reports. The company is already scouting locations to test out the technology, showing that the car is more developed than previous reports have suggested

Reuters

8/99
Ashley Madison leak

Hackers stole the personal details of millions of users of Ashley Madison, an 'anonymous' dating website which was targeted at people seeking extramarital affairs. The oddly moralistic hackers, working under the name 'Impact Team', said they would post the information online unless the site was shut down

PHILIPPE LOPEZ/AFP/Getty Images

9/99
Yahoo Livetext

Yahoo has launched an app intended to make video chats feel less awkward, by not making people feel compelled to talk at all. Livetext, quietly launched weeks ago and now being rolled out worldwide, allows people to chat without actually talking, instead sending video feeds and messages in text. The company hopes that it can overcome the awkwardness of phone calls and video chats by keeping the intimacy of video but the spontaneity of normal chat.
The app works by showing a video of the person that you’re chatting with, in the same way as with a Facetime or Skype call. But instead of talking to them — which wouldn’t be heard — the app pops up a chat box where users can send messages or emoji

10/99
Samsung unveils biggest hard drive ever made

Samsung has unveiled the biggest hard drive ever made, packing 16TB of storage into a standard sized hard drive. The company has managed to fit such a huge amount of memory in such a small box using a range of special new technologies, it said when it launched the drive at California’s Flash Memory Summit. It is packed with a huge array of flash dies — the things that actually do the storing — packed together by using a 3D stacking technique.
Samsung has managed to put stacks of memory on top of each other, to fit more in, rather than the traditional flat way that memory is kept in a hard drive

EPA/GOOGLE HANDOUT

11/99
Twitter's Periscope livestreaming app gets 10 million users in first four months

The app launched at the end of March, with the aim of letting everyone send livestreamed videos from their phone to the world. And now users are sending 40 years of video per day, according to Twitter, which owns Periscope.
Periscope said that the amount of time watched “is the metric we care about most,” because it tells it how successful it is for users and indicates how many people are actively using the app. It said that despite the huge numbers of active users, that metric wasn’t necessarily helpful since it didn’t want to grow in a way that didn’t lead to the success of the product or its users. Periscope launched at the beginning of a rush for livestreaming apps, shortly after very similar app Meerkat. While the latter had much of initial publicity and popularity, Twitter’s app has slowly taken over

12/99
Robot 'mother' builds babies that can evolve on their own

Scientists have created a ‘mother’ robot that can build babies out of mechanised blocks, and then create new ones that evolve from the previous generation. The findings show that robots could be able to evolve on their own, in the same way that animals and humans have. Like biological evolution, the robots mother could look out for the best traits in her children, and then use those to improve the following generations of robots.
In five different experiments, robot set the mother — which looks like a big robotic arm — to work building generations of ten different children. They were built out of small plastic cubes with motors inside

13/99
Samsung Pay revealed

Samsung’s own way to pay with a mobile phone instead of a credit card was revealed in detail . It’s not coming to the UK just yet, though with luck it’ll be here by the end of 2015. And it has some features that rival systems, including Apple Pay, can’t match. Most importantly, it works with most kinds of credit card reader, not just the contactless card reader needed to make rivals work. It’s because instead of sending out an NFC signal, as Apple Pay does, it additionally uses a system called MST which fools a regular card reader into thinking there’s a magnetic stripe card present

AFP PHOTO / JUNG YEON-JE

14/99
Tesla Model S can be shut down remotely with just one key press

Hackers have managed to remotely take over a Tesla car — unlocking its doors, starting it, and driving it away, and managing also to shut it down with just the click of the button. Tesla’s electric Model S is among the most secure cars in the world. But the hackers were still able to break in and control it remotely. The hackers couldn’t break straight into the car. Instead, they had to hack into different parts of it, gradually getting towards the entertainment centre, from which the car can be stopped and various parts of it controlled. To do so involved getting hold of a car and taking apart the dashboard. Once they were in there they could get through to the first part of a long chain of weaknesses that eventually led them to the infotainment system

Teri Pengilley/The Independent

15/99
Nanoparticles with aluminium ‘yolks’ could enhance the life-span of rechargeable batteries

By creating an electrode consisting of nanoparticles with a solid shell and an internal ‘yolk’, the scientists have reportedly solved an issue with current rechargeable batteries that sees performance significantly deteriorate after repeated charges.
According to their findings, their newly developed lithium-ion battery is far more resistant to the damage caused by frequent charge cycles. While current electrodes degrade over time after growing and shrinking in size over multiple charges, the aluminium ‘yolk’ filling of the newly designed nanoparticles would allow for increased growth which causes less damage to their titanium-dioxide shells

MIT

16/99
Xbox One will let you record live TV

Microsoft took to the stage at gamescom 2015 in Cologne and announced their plans to introduce DVR for Over-the-Air TV to the Xbox One. They have announced a slight catch to what they claim was one of their most requested features for the Xbox One based on fan feedback – it can only record to an external hard drive.
Coming days after Microsoft’s announcement that it has formed a partnership with Seagate to produce a bespoke 2TB external drive for Xbox One and Xbox 360, Microsoft claims that the necessity of an external hard drive for the DVR feature is because they do not want to affect the gaming experience

17/99
Digital camera software lets humans see like an animal

Researchers from the University of Exeter have created a free software program that shows users the difference between how humans and animals see images. Intended for the analysis of animal signalling, camouflage and plant health and identification, the software presents a unique opportunity to view the world through the eyes of different species and compare it to our own vision

Reuters

18/99
Samsung Galaxy Note 5 and S6 Edge

Images of the new Samsung Galaxy Note 5 and Galaxy S6 Edge have been leaked online, along with detailed specifications of the new phones. The two new handsets are set to be unveiled at a Samsung event on August 13. But most of the important details have already been revealed. As well as the high-quality pictures — which show that the two large phones take many of their design queues from the S6 and S6 Edge, released earlier this year — the company has leaked many of their important specifications

19/99
Stratolaunch

The biggest plane in the world is due to set off next year, and it’s a wide as three Boeing 737s. The Stratolaunch — which is currently in production — began development in 2011, and is under construction at the Mojave Air and Space Port in California. Its makers, Scaled Composites, hope to have it ready to take off on test flights next year. The plane is nicknamed “Roc” after a mythical bird, reports Yahoo. It has six jet engines, 28 wheels and a 385-foot wingspan

20/99
Apple 'planning its own mobile phone network'

The company is secretly trialling a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) — a mobile network that borrows its service from other companies — according to Business Insider. It is in talks to bring the service to the US and Europe, according to the reports, but it might not actually appear for another five years

REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon

21/99
LinkedIn responds to complaints about too many emails

LinkedIn has listened to user complaints about the frequency of its notifications and has promised to cut down on the number of emails it sends to users. In a blog post entitled “Less is more,” a spokesperson for the network said: “Many of you have told us that you receive too many emails from LinkedIn. We’re also not immune to the late night talk show host jokes. We get it”

REUTERS/Robert Galbraith

22/99
Amazon UK launch Prime Music streaming service

Amazon have just launched their new streaming service in the UK. The launch comes days after research showing a surge in growth of the British music streaming market with more than 500m songs being streamed every week, nearly double the rate of a year ago

Amazon

23/99
Instagram's first game

At the ripe of age of five, Instagram is no longer just a platform for sharing highly-planned selfies and photos of your dinner, but is now also hosting its first ever game. The game is based on cult animated series Rick and Morty. The critically acclaimed Adult Swim sci-fi series follows alcoholic scientist Rick Sanchez and his impressionable grandson Morty Smith as they explore the universe.
The Rickstaverse game transforms Instagram into a hidden object-style game, where fans of the show can delve into 25 different worlds

YouTube/Adult Swim

24/99
Google+ Photos killed off

Google+ Photos is being closed, in what could be the final sign that the mostly-quiet social network is shutting down. The photos service was long one of the most useful parts of Google+, the search giant’s attempt at building a social network, since it offered clever editing tools and ways of sharing pictures with friends. But many of those feature have now been built into the standalone Google Photos, which does all the same — but adds even more clever artificial intelligence tools to help it recognise certain features of pictures

25/99
Ashley Madison hacked

The personal records of 37 million users of a site that helps people cheat on their spouses will be released if it doesn’t shut down, hackers have threatened. Ashley Madison, the dating site that has the tagline “Life is short. Have an affair” has been hacked and all of the details of its users and owner Avid Life Media have been stolen. The hackers, calling themselves The Impact Team, are demanding that the site is taken down or all of the details will be leaked. Avid Life Media called the hack "an act of cyber-terrorism"

26/99
Samsung Galaxy Tab S2

Samsung has launched the Galaxy Tab S2 — a new, thin and light tablet that Samsung hopes can beat the iPad. The S2 comes in two sizes — either a 9.7-inch or 8.0-inch screen — which are slightly different to its predecessor, the Tab S. That screen is Super AMOLED, and inside the body is a fingerprint scanner, a fairly large battery, and either 32GB or 64GB of internal storage. The tablet is 5.6mm thin and either 389g or 265g, depending on the screen size. Samsung says that the tablet is the world’s thinnest and lightest metal tablet of its size

27/99
Windows 10 update

Windows 10 can be pre-ordered now and it will come on a USB drive for the first time. Windows 10 Home will cost $119.99 and Windows 10 Pro will cost $199.99, according to a listing on Amazon. And they will be sent to users on USB drives, rather than the traditional DVD.
“Windows 10 will be available on USB drives for purchase in retail channels shortly after launch,” a Microsoft spokesperson told VentureBeat. “The suggested retail prices for Windows 10 in the U.S. are the same as Windows 8.1”

Getty

28/99
Apple Pay

TfL says users will face penalty charges if battery runs out on the Tube. The newly-released technology lets users pay for things, including journeys on the TfL network, using their phone. But if they tap on and then are unable to tap out, they will have to pay the maximum fare and could be slapped with a penalty charge.
“Your iPhone or Apple Watch must be switched on to use it to travel,” TfL warns on its official Apple Pay page. “You should also check that you have enough battery on your iPhone or Apple Watch to complete your journey”

PA

29/99
Oculus

Oculus has bought an Israeli gesture recognition firm, potentially bringing the ability to interact with the worlds shown in its Rift virtual reality headset. The company, Pebbles, makes kit so that headsets and other computers can recognise the movements of their users and then render them in the virtual world. At the moment, the Oculus Rift headset can only show images of the worlds that it lets people inhabit — but the new technology could be used to let people fully interact with them, too. Eventually, that will be used to let people communicate with each other and interact with the objects that are shown to them, Oculus said

30/99
Facebook shopping

Facebook is adding a buy button to its pages — letting users shop on the site without ever having to leave. The new tools will let shops show off products on their pages and then allow users to buy things straight from them, reports BuzzFeed News. The company is testing the new feature out with a few dozen sellers at the moment, but is set to expand to include others if it is successful. The shops are likely to be displayed very prominently in the app, according to BuzzFeed’s initial view. The site speculated that may mean that users will see more actual items from shops — rather than advertising images created with the aim of going viral as promotion

Giving the iPhone personal assistant the instruction to “charge phone 100%” means that it automatically calls the police, the Verge has found. No further questions are asked, and users have five seconds to end the call. It seems to happen because the phone is hearing the words as an instruction to “phone 100”, and it interprets 100 as the emergency services. Telling the phone to “charge phone 999” and “charge phone 911” have the same effect

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Apple iPhone scam sees users asked for up to £50 to 'unlock' their devices

Affected iPhone users in the US and the UK have seen a "crash report" message appear on their screen, asking them to contact a number for an “immediate fix”. Although the US Apple customers have experienced the problem for at least nine months, the MailOnline has claimed that the scam has now crossed the Atlantic. An Apple spokesperson told the newspaper that people should check their security settings on Safari

Getty

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Darkode.com hacker site shut down in worldwide sting

The US Justice Department has shut down an online black market where criminals could buy stolen databases, viruses and other products that can cripple or steal information from computers. 70 criminals from 20 different countries were targeted in the 18-month probe into Darkode.com, a members-only website where malware was freely for sale.
In order to gain access, users had prove their credentials, and show that they could contribute to the criminal community. There was also a hierarchical system amongst members, which dictated which other users they could communicate with and what commodities they could access

34/99
New iPod Touch

Apple is about to launch new versions of its iPod Touch, Shuffle and Nano, kitting them out in new colours and with new bumped-up specs. Many had worried that Apple was about to kill off its famous iPod line — as part of a new focus on streaming in the wake of Apple Music — but it looks like the company was just waiting to refresh it. The new devices will include a new iPod Touch with upgraded specifications, and new colours for all three of its iPod devices, according to 9to5mac. The new Nano and Shuffles will just get cosmetic changes, as Apple will add new dark blue, pink and gold colours. Those changes had been accidentally revealed by a new version of iTunes — when a user plugged their iPod into sync, and the computer showed a picture featuring iPods in colours that hadn’t been released yet

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Samsung Galaxy A8

Samsung has just released the slimmest phone it has ever made, the Galaxy A8, and it hasn’t really told anyone. The phone has just quietly launched in China, and is just 5.9mm thin. It has an all-metal body that weighs just 151 grams.
Despite its small size, the phone’s specs are as good as many mid-range models. It has a 16-megapixel camera on the back, 2GB of RAM, and a 5.7-inch 1080p display that is framed by a tiny bezel, according to the Chinese release site — as well as a 3,050mAh battery, which is more than the flagship Galaxy S6

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Instagram bug gives people thousands of followers — and will take them back

A bug gave people thousands more Instagram followers than they really had. The problem gave some of the biggest users many thousands of extra followers. But they were all added by mistake and are already being removed

Getty

37/99
Facebook News Feed preferences

Facebook has added new options to its news feed, with the aim of helping people make it less boring. The new controls included “See First”, which lets users choose people they want to hear from more, who will then be automatically pushed to the top of the feed. They also include tools to help people find new pages to follow and easy ways of unfollowing people and groups that aren’t interesting. The new tools have appeared already in an update to the iOS app, and “will be rolling out on Android and desktop over the coming weeks”, Facebook said. To get the extra preferences, users can head to the “More” button in the bottom right hand corner of the app and select them through Settings

KIMIHIRO HOSHINO | AFP | Getty Images

38/99
IBM makes tiny chips as small as a blood cell

The development could lead modern computers to be shrunk down to tiny sizes, as well as the production of nanocomputers that could allow for entirely new uses of technology. It has finally undone worries that the pace of progress in technology could dramatically slow, because it seemed that there was to be little progress in further shrinking the semiconductors that power computers.
The smallest of the new chips are about 7-nanometres wide. The smallest parts on current chips are twice that

IBM

39/99
Porn on Twitter

Twitter has built highly-intelligent robots that can recognise porn, in an attempt to stop it spreading on the network. The site has long been said to have a porn problem – which has been reported to scare off marketers who are afraid that their ads will appear next to content that is not safe for work. But it is putting to work technology it acquired when it bought a startup last year, which can spot NSFW images and other offensive media, helping automatically hide it in people’s feeds. The porn-spotting robots are part of a broader move towards artificial intelligence at Twitter. But in the short term it could be able to cut out the huge amount of offensive content that appears in some parts of the site

Reuters

40/99
Facebook is planning to launch its own streaming music service

The company is in early talks to build a competitor to Spotify and Apple Music, according to Music Ally. The service is likely to follow an initial launch of ad-supported music videos – part of Facebook’s plans to take on YouTube, which have also seen it launch auto-playing videos and seen views rise hugely. The streaming service isn’t set to launch for some time, unnamed sources told the music site. The company hasn’t yet decided on a business model or a launch timetable, they said

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iOS 9 to have special photo albums for screenshots and selfies

Gone, it seems, are the days of your photo library being full of accidental screenshots and embarrassing selfies. Now, the phone will automatically detect pictures that fall into one of those two groups – filing them away in their own folder for easy sharing or deleting.
iPhones already store some kinds of photo away in their own folder – time-lapse, slo-mo, burst photos and videos all get their own album

Getty Images

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iPhone 7

The next iPhone will have technology that will let it know how hard its screen is being pressed, and turn it into one big button, according to reports. Apple’s next phone – likely called the iPhone 6S or iPhone 7 – will have Force Touch technology, first launched in the Apple Watch, according to a Wall Street Journal report. The company is also considering new colours for the phone, alongside the current grey, silver and gold options. The Force Touch technology will allow a new way of interacting with the phone, alongside the current swipes and taps. On the Apple Watch, it allows the screen to act like another button – with long presses bringing up extra options on the screen – and some rumours have already suggested that will be used in the camera app

Getty Images

43/99
The BBC unveils the micro:bit

The BBC has unveiled the micro:bit, a tiny computer that will be given away to every 11 and 12-year-old child in Year 7 across the country, as part of an effort to improve computer literacy and coding skills amongst young people. The micro:bit is a simple machine, roughly the size of a credit card. While it's not the most powerful computer in the world, it's hoped that its simple functions will teach children valuable lessons in computer science and programming.
The main features on the body of the tiny device are an array of 25 small LED lights, two buttons, a built-in motion sensor, a Bluetooth chip and a magnetometer, which detects magnetic fields. Through writing simple code, which children will be able to learn via the micro:bit website, they'll be able to turn it into a spirit level, a video games controller, a metal detector, and many other devices. They'll be able to save and test their programs on the website, before transferring them to the computer through Bluetooth or a USB connection

BBC

44/99
Instagram upgrades picture resolution

All Instagram pictures everywhere are about to get far nicer-looking, as the company is finally upgrading its photos to HD. The site and app have long limited pictures to a 640 by 640 resolution, far more grainy than the screens of modern smartphones. But the site is finally pushing that up to 1080 by 1080 resolution — more than an HD TV. The change is initially rolling out on the iOS and Android apps, and the web app is still showing pictures at the old size. But it’s likely that the site will upgrade all versions of Instagram to support the more detailed pictures

Getty Images

45/99
Google launches RideWith

Google has launched its own carpooling service, taking on Uber with the opportunity to pay someone to sit in their car on the way to work. RideWith will be powered by Waze, the Google-owned community-based mapping service, and will be limited to an initial pilot. But many have suggested that the company is looking to take on other car-sharing and taxi companies — eventually using self-driving vehicles — and the new launch could be the beginning of those plans. At first, the service will only be launched in Israel, where Waze is based. It will only be available for people in the Gush Dan region who are using Android — but it is likely that the company will expand it further after that, describing it as a “pilot”

AFP/Getty

46/99
Twitter launches 'Birthday' feature

Twitter wants to know people’s birthday — so they can let their followers know, show them a balloon animation, and give them more personalised ads. The social network has launched an option to let people add their birthday in the “Edit profile” settings. Once it’s added, users can show the information to the public or their followers. The feature will be opt-in for all users, so it won’t be shown unless the option is chosen. Users can choose who to show it to, as well as letting people decide whether they want to show the year they were born, or just the date

Leon Neal/Getty Images

47/99
Amazon Prime Day

Amazon is to run a huge day of sales on July 15 to celebrate its 20th birthday. The sales will be “filled with more deals than Black Friday”, according to the company. It will see discounted products across Amazon’s ranges, including electronics, toys and films. Customers must be a member of Amazon Prime to get the deal. But the company is offering a 30-day free trial to promote the sales

Getty Images

48/99
Apple Pay coming to UK

Apple Pay, which lets customers buy things by touching their iPhone 6 or Apple Watch on a card reader, is set to arrive in the UK on 14 July. Apple Pay purchases will be limited to £20 initially, but that is expected to rise in the autumn. That would be in line with contactless payment cards, which have the same limit now but will see that rise to £30 in September

Getty

49/99
Netflix tax

Chicago is to raise extra funds by charging a “cloud tax” — taking an extra 9 per cent from the money raised popular streaming services like Netflix. The charge, which will also hit streaming services like Spotify, could make the city an extra $12 million a year, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. The new levy will apply to all entertainment, including TV, films, music and games that are rented digitally. It will also apply to companies that lend people computing power through the cloud

Getty

50/99
Snapchat updated to let people see stories and snaps without holding finger down

Before, people had to get tired thumbs while they covered up the screen to make the snap play. But now, users can “Tap to View”, letting people see the whole video or picture with just one click. “This means no more tired thumbs while watching a several-hundred-second Story… and a little getting used to for anyone who has been Snapchatting for a while,” Snapchat said, introducing the feature

Getty

51/99
Internet addresses have officially run out

The internet has run out of space — but, thankfully, we’ve already made some more. The infrastructure powering the internet was made with space for 4.3 billion addresses. That seemed like a lot at the time, but we’ve now got too many devices and the IPv4 protocol has run out of space.
Experts have already urged those who run websites that they should instead be using the very spacious IPv6 specification. But moving is expensive and time-consuming — and while most big websites have already done so, many smaller ones could be left without the space to keep working. IP addresses, one version of which we have now run out of, are used by computers to identify themselves to each other so that they can connect

Getty

52/99
Calls to 0800 numbers are now free

Ringing 0800 and 0808 numbers will finally be free, and other charges will become a lot more clear, under new Ofcom rules. Despite being referred to as freephone numbers — and not usually being charged from landlines — many run up huge costs ringing 0800 and other numbers. But the changes force service providers to make calls to all 175 million "freephone" numbers actually free. They also clear up costs around numbers starting 084, 087, 09 and 118

Getty Images

53/99
Facebook will let people send thoughts directly to friends

Facebook is working to let people communicate using technology that lets them share their thoughts, rather than having to communicate through text or pictures, Mark Zuckerberg has said. Asked what is “going on with Facebook in the future” during one of his regular question and answer sessions on the site, Zuckerberg laid out his plans for telepathic communication built on virtual reality

Getty Images

54/99
Apple Music goes live

Apple Music, the company's competitor to Spotify, has gone live in an update that can be downloaded now. The new version of iOS, 8.4, can be downloaded from the Settings app. That will automatically install a new version of the Music app, where Apple's new streaming service will live.
To download the service, users head to the Settings app. Clicking on "General" and then "Software update" brings up the screen, and the phone will check for the update with Apple's servers.
The rest of the update process is then automatic — the phone will download and then install the update itself

AP Photo/Jeff Chiu

55/99
iPhone 7

Apple is preparing to make new iPhones with Force Touch, a feature that lets the phone know how hard its screen is being pressed. The feature lets the screen work as a kind of button, allowing extra options. It was introduced with the Apple Watch and has been brought to some MacBooks — and has long been expected to make its way to all of Apple’s devices eventually. The company has been working on the screens for the iPhone for at least two years, according to Bloomberg. But suppliers are now getting ready to make them, possibly ahead of a launch of the iPhone 6S or iPhone 7 in the autumn

Nasa is working with Microsoft to take its augmented reality headset into space, and use it to help astronauts do difficult tasks while in orbit. The agency will be able to use Microsoft’s new headset to add extra information to the spacecraft. That might let people see instructions on what buttons they should be pressing, for instance, or give people on the ground the ability to see from an astronauts perspective.
The first pair of the devices will head up into space on Sunday, on board a resupply mission that is being flown up by SpaceX, the private rocket company. The HoloLens is a special headset that allows people to see virtual images displayed on top of the real world. It was introduced by Microsoft as part of the launch of Windows 10

Nasa

57/99
Reddit blocked in China

Reddit seems to have been blocked in China, in yet another widening of the country’s “Great Firewall”. The social news site joins most other major American web services — including Google, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram — in being blocked from inside the country. Sites including Reddit may be accessible through virtual private networks (VPNs), but China has been cracking down on those too. The website Blocked In China shows the site as unavailable from computers in all of the regions that are tested: Beijing, Shenzhen, Inner Mongolia, Heilongjiang Province and Yunnan Province.
On Reddit itself, some users were still able to access the site. The blocks are done in such a way that they can show initially only in some areas — but sometimes sites are blocked and then made available again without notice

REUTERS/Robert Galbraith

58/99
Hadrian the robot bricklayer can build a whole house in two days

An Australian engineer has built a robot that can build houses in two days, and could work every day to build houses for people. Human housebuilders have to work for four to six weeks to put a house together, and have to take weekends and holidays. The robot can work much more quickly and doesn’t need to take breaks.
Hadrian could take the jobs of human bricklayers. But its creator, Mark Pivac, told PerthNow that it was a response to the lack of available workers — the average age of the industry is getting much higher, and the robot might be able to fill some of that gap

GETTY IMAGES

59/99
Facebook to let people use Messenger without having account on social network

The app was once only available within Facebook itself — but has been split up into a separate app, and now unbundled from Facebook entirely. Now, users can just sign up with a name, their phone number and a photo, though Facebook login is still shown as a priority.
The site made the change because it felt that requiring people to sign up for Facebook was holding people back from using Messenger, according to Wired. The site has been looking to add to the 700 million people that use Messenger

Josh Edelson/AFP/Getty Images

60/99
Samsung disables Windows Update, putting users at risk

Samsung intentionally stopped its computers from receiving important updates and could be putting them at risk of hacking and viruses, according to experts. The company has disabled Windows Update in its laptops, which means that the computers can’t receive important updates from Microsoft. Those are often used to patch up security vulnerabilities that have been found, meaning that the Samsung computers could be more easily hacked into.
The company has installed a file called Disable_Windowsupdate.exe onto its computers, according to security researchers on the Sysnative forum. That Samsung-made file removes the application and shuts it down if users try to re-open it

David Becker/Getty Images

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Lexus has made a real, rideable hoverboard called 'SLIDE'

Lexus, the car company, claims that it has made a real hoverboard that people can actually ride. The company hasn’t revealed much about the project, only releasing a short trailer where the hoverboard doesn’t actually get ridden and just hovers a little above the ground. But it claims to have “created a real, rideable overboard” in its promotional website for the project

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Google Play Music goes free

Google has launched a free streaming music service — days before Apple releases its own music streaming service, which will have no free tier. Google Play Music already has a subscription-based service, where users pay monthly to listen to an unlimited amount of tracks. The technology giant announced a free version, made up of curated playlists designed for different times of the day and tailored towards what you are doing

Getty Images

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Gmail adds 'undo send' feature

Google has added a new feature to let people take back their accidentally sent emails. Gmail’s newest addition is an “undo send” feature, which lets people recall emails that have been sent, up to 30 seconds after they’ve been despatched. It works by holding back the email for a pre-defined time, and then letting it go if users don’t say that they’ve sent it in error. Users must enable the feature through the settings page in Gmail, by clicking in the cog at the top right hand screen and scrolling through the general tab. It also gives the option to choose how long the undo send feature shows for — offering settings between 5 and 30 seconds

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Amazon Echo

Amazon is finally releasing its Echo digital assistant to the public, after months of only letting people who are invited get to see it. Everyone in the US can now order the small, bin-shaped speaker and get it shipped to them from July 14. It was originally launched in November, and Amazon says that it has been making improvements to it since then.
The company’s speaker — which can control other hardware like connected lamps, and stream music out of its speaker — has received mix reviews since it was released. On Amazon itself, it has a 4.5 star rating from those that were selected to take part in an early release

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GCHQ and NSA broke antivirus software so that they could spy on people

The British and American spy agencies deliberately broke anti-virus software so that they could read the messages of their citizens, according to new leaks. Both the NSA and GCHQ have long been said to have deliberately reversed engineer software so that they could find weaknesses in software and exploit them to read communications. But new documents show that the agencies did so to some of the most popular antivirus software, potentially exposing hundreds of millions of people to dangerous viruses, according to a report from The Intercept

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Pepper: Japanese robot assistant that can read and experience emotions

Pepper, a humanoid robot that can feel emotion and look after its owner, has sold out a minute after going on sale. The robot went on sale, after much anticipation and build-up. A minute later, all 1,000 had been sold, with customers paying the equivalent of £1,000 each for the robot and then monthly insurance and data fees on top.
For that money, the robot’s owners will be “made happy”, according to the company that made it. “He's an emotional robot, not a functional robot for domestic use with dish washer or vacuum cleaner functionalities,” according to an FAQ on the site of French robotics firm Alderbaran that helped make the robot.
It will tend to its owners emotional needs by learning about them and having conversations with them. Humans can talk to the robot and it will be able to understand

Getty Images

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Sony Playstation 4

Sony has launched a new version of its PlayStation 4, adding a bigger hard drive and changing the console’s case. The new console has had its internal hard drive doubled to 1TB — in line with the new Xbox, announced last week. And the 500GB model has been slimmed down, making it 10 per cent lighter and 8 per cent more power efficient.
The new 1TB console — named the “Ultimate Player Edition” — will be released in “select” countries in Europe on July 2015. A broader release after that is expected but has not yet been confirmed

Sony

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Tinder working on video dating features

Tinder users will eventually be able to find dates using videos, as well as sharing pictures and other information, for the first time. The site has already used video in ads, showing users films from companies like Bud Light. But it is working to let users share videos in their profiles, reports The Drum.
The company is still “figuring out the right way to do it for users”, co-founder Sean Rad told the marketing news site. It is one of the few big apps aimed at young people that hasn't focused on video — which is a large part of recent moves by services like Snapchat and Facebook

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Google cracks down on revenge porn

Google has made the decision to clamp down on revenge porn, allowing victims to put in requests to have content involving them taken down. Revenge porn is a growing problem worldwide, and is usually made by a scorned ex-partner uploading explicit pictures or videos of their former partner to the internet without their permission.
Some of these images make their way on to porn sites, but others can surface on 'sextortion' sites, that charge the people in the pictures a fee for them to be taken down

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

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Apple Watch 2 out next year

Apple is planning to release an updated version of the Apple Watch next year, according to reports, which will feature a video camera, more independence from the iPhone, and new models. The company is looking to release its new phone in 2016, rather than releasing a new version ahead of Christmas as some had indicated, according to 9to5mac. Though Apple is reported to be working on all of the new features, some might be left out of the next model as development continues, the blog reports

AP

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Google’s image recognising robots turned on themselves

Computers have dreams, according to Google — and they’re often highly trippy, strange ones of dog-fishes and bananas. Google’s highly-powered, clever computers are normally used for image recognition — a technology that requires computers to think like humans, learning what things look like. But the company set them loose identifying small, subtle things, skewing the images to show a knight made of dogs or clouds that resemble a “pig snail”. The search giant is just one of many companies who are working on artificial neural networks, which use highly-developed mathematical methods to simulate the way that human’s brains think. But by turning those computers upside down, they throw out the strange images

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BBC technology lets people control iPlayer with their mind

The kit sees users strap a headset on and use particular thoughts to turn on iPlayer and start watching a programme. It is only experimental technology at the moment — built to give “an idea of how this technology might be used in the future” — but it worked for everyone that has used it in testing, the BBC said. The prototype works by reading brainwaves using a sensor that rests on the forehead, and another that attaches to the ear using a clip. Those sensors can then track the electricity as it moves around the brain — watching for concentration, and filling up a bar of brainwaves when they concentrate hard enough to trigger a change on screen

Getty

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Nest Labs

Nest, Google's connected home products maker, has revealed a new set of products including a home security camera that costs £159. Home security cameras are becoming increasingly commonplace, with most big tech companies unveiling their own versions of them. But the Google-owned company hopes that its new technologies — including 1080p video and a special app for recording and processing images — will be able to justify its much higher price tag.
The company also unveiled updates to its other products, a smart thermostat and smoke alarm, including new apps for controlling them

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Super-private social network launched to take on Facebook with support of Anonymous

A new social network, backed by members of Anonymous, hopes to take on Facebook and the other social media giants with a commitment to privacy, security and transparency about how posts are promoted. The site, Minds.com, has the same basic options as any other social network: users send updates to their followers, who can comment or promote posts that they read. But unlike its competitors it doesn’t aim to make money from gathering data — instead, it encrypts all messages, so that they can’t be read by advertisers or by governments

ANNE-CHRISTINE POUJOULAT/AFP/Getty Images

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Twitter launches autoplay for videos and gives option to turn it off

Twitter will now automatically play videos as users scroll through their feed, starting the films as they scroll past them. The feature mimics one found on Facebook, which has been credited with its huge growth in video. Twitter says that it has added the feature to make it “even easier to enjoy video on Twitter”

LEON NEAL/AFP/Getty Images

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Xbox One at E3

Xbox has finally launched backwards compatibility for some Xbox 360 games, so that owners of the current generation Xbox One can play their old games. The new system will support more than 100 games at launch, with many more being added over time. Members of Microsoft’s early release scheme, Xbox One preview, will be able to try them now and the scheme will be rolled out by the end of the year. Players won’t have to buy a new version of the game to play it on the Xbox One

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Fallout 4 announced

Bethesda has finally, officially announced Fallout 4, showing off a new setting, game mechanics and detailed graphics and gameplay at its first big E3 event. The company has been teasing the release, following rumours since late last year that Bethesda was reviving the game. But it finally said at its E3 event that the game will come out on November 10, 2015

GLENN CHAPMAN/AFP/Getty Images

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Snapchat introduces new security verification to help users protect their accounts

Snapchat has changed its security features to include a new two-step authentication to make logging in more secure. Despite previous security leaks, when hacking reportedly saw 100,000 photos exposed, the app’s creators have added a new way of keeping unwanted snoopers out. Users who download the app’s latest update, will be able to add verification which demands a 6-digit password whenever they log on to a new device

Elon Musk has asked the government to let his private space travel company, SpaceX, put 4,000 satellites into orbit to provide internet for the earth. The PayPal founder hopes that the satellites could take on conventional internet companies by sending internet signals across the globe, allowing it to provide cheap and fast internet even to places that have traditionally struggled to get connected. It hopes to find success by both taking customers from existing internet service providers as well as getting the billions of people that can’t get online onto the internet

The next iPhone could offer a flash on its front facing camera, according to code found buried in early releases of the operating system that will run on it. The feature, which will allow people to take selfies in the dark, was found in early releases of iOS 9. The same code seems to indicate that the phone will receive an update to a 1080p camera, from the existing 720p one, and support for panoramic selfies and slow motion video

Getty

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Twitter users can now share the lists of users they block

In its latest bid to stop trolls, Twitter is allowing users to create a public list of abusive accounts they have blocked. Users are now able to export their own blocklists, or import other people's – making it easier to expose users who are potentially offensive, aggressive, or just downright annoying

Bethany Clarke/Getty Images

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iOS 9 beta launch

Apple is to run the first ever beta for its mobile operating system this summer, letting customers start using iOS 9 as part of a special programme. The official launch of the software isn’t expected until the autumn. But users can sign up any time for the beta programme, letting them get early versions of OS X 10.11 as well as iOS 9

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Apple Music launch

Apple has released Music, a streaming music service that also integrates social features and special radio stations. The new service will be launched in over 100 countries on June 30. It will come to iOS — including iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch — as well as iTunes on Mac and Windows. The new app will replace the existing Music app on the iPhone, as well as being built into new versions of iTunes for desktops. As such, it will also be able to store existing music bought from iTunes or ripped from CDs, that users already have in their music library

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Mac OS X El Capitan - new version of desktop operating system released

The update is focused on improving the experience and stability of the software. Some of those new features improve the performance of the system by up to 10 times, according to Apple. The name El Capitan is part of Apple’s naming system for operating systems, which sees them take the names of California landmarks. El Capitan is a mountain in Yosemite, the name of the previous version — thought to have been chosen because the new version isn’t so much a new OS as an improvement on the existing one

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Samsung Galaxy S6 Active released

Samsung has unveiled a new durable and waterproof version of its flagship S6 smartphone. The phone, launched as the world waited for Apple’s big Worldwide Developers Conference event, features all of the insides of the normal S6, but packs them into a much more robust and slightly bigger body. The phone is dustproof and water-resistant, features a special activity app, and is “built for adventure”, according to Samsung

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Air Force developing super-fast planes

The US Air Force is developing a super-fast weapon that can fly many times the speed of sound. Travelling at over Mach 5.1, the jet could make it from London to New York in an hour. But it will be used instead as a super-fast weapon, working like a missile

US Air Force

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Japanese phone is first with iris recognition

Move over Apple iPhone and fingerprint scanner, a Japanese mobile that can recognise you by your eyes is about to hit the shelves. The Arrows NX F-04G from Fujitsu comes with a first of its kind iris recognition system that will allow users to unlock the device, sign into apps and even authorise payments as the company CEO demonstrated by ordering a pizza at the product launch, according to the Wall Street Journal. An infrared LED works in tandem with the front-facing camera of the phone to illuminate the structure of the coloured part of your eye and snap a reliable likeness

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Windows 10 release date

Microsoft will release Windows 10, a huge upgrade to its operating system, on July 29. The upgrade will be offered free to users running Windows 7 and Windows 8.1. The free offer will be available for the first year after it is released

Getty

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USB Type-C coming to Android

The next version of Android will support USB Type-C — making phones able to charge other phones, as well as a range of other things. The new cable, which was first brought to the public in the newest version of the MacBook, is reversible, can send information super-fast, will be a widely-adopted standard and should help computers and phones become much smaller. And it can also send power both ways, meaning that phones could charge up anything else, like a computer

Google

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MIT robots can now clear hurdles as they run

MIT scientists have trained a robotic cheetah to be able to jump over hurdles, making dropping objects no longer a way to outrun them as they take over the world. The robot uses complex technologies to be able to plan out its path and ready up to jump, in the same way humans do. It can detect obstacles, work out how tall and far away they are, and then calculate the best time and way to jump to clear the obstacle. The robot can then adjust itself on its way back to the floor, so that it can start running again with no break

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Shazam adds visual recognition

Shazam has added visual recognition features to its app, meaning that it can identify pictures and text in the same way it does music. The feature will allow people to point their phone at posters, magazines and other real-world things, which will then bring up certain content on their phones. Magazines will be able to embed the feature into covers, for instance, so that showing them to the phone will bring up videos involving the person in a photos

Reuters

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Facebook's restaurant pages to feature reviews from critics

Facebook will now start showing professional critics’ reviews of restaurants, alongside the traditional rankings and ravings of Facebook friends and strangers. The site has long allowed normal people to rate restaurants and other businesses out of five as well as leaving short text reviews of their experience there. But now professional reviews from outlets including Conde Nast Traveler and New York Magazine will also have their reviews show up there, letting people see what professionals think

A campaigner and artist has launched a new site that hopes to make Google’s image search results more diverse. At the moment, a search for most generic body parts — like “cute baby” or “arm” — shows people and bodies that are almost entirely white. But as part of a project named World White Web, Johanna Burai hopes to change that.
The almost entirely white results are part of the way that the internet and culture think of whiteness as neutral or the norm, Burai told the Fader

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iOS bug lets people crash your iPhone

iPhones can be crashed if they receive a text containing one specific line of Arabic characters and symbols. Sending the letters in a text message causes the phone to crash and then power off, leaving the Messages app unusable once the iPhone turns back on. Users have found a way of fixing the problem once it has happened, but there appears to be no way to keep phones from being vulnerable to it happening again until Apple sends out an update

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Periscope for Android

Twitter has finally launched its livestreaming app Periscope on Android, two months after the app was launched on iOS. The app is now available to download from the Google Play Store. The company launched the app in late March, with 1 million signups in the first 10 days. But only iOS users could register, with everyone else being forced to watch on the web, where users can't comment or subscribe to feeds

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Fingerprint readers to arrive on Android phones everywhere

Fingerprint readers to arrive on Android phones everywhere. As with the very top iPhone and Samsung Galaxy mobiles, users of Google’s upcoming Nexus line and other flagship devices will have the capacity to authenticate their payments and web services with just the touch of a fingertip.
The news comes with a leak reported by Buzzfeed ahead of the Google I/O developer conference where the platform's third-party software engineers gather to hear about the latest toys and features they’ll get to use as the most up-to-date version of the OS is announced

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Microsoft Flow

Microsoft is to launch its own chat app called Flow, which hopes that it can streamline email and enter the hotly-contested market. The new app will let people have "rapid email conversations on your phone", in a way more like a chat app, according to supposedly secret details discovered on a publicly-accessible Microsoft site. The chats will allow "Fast, fluid, natural conversations", with no "subject lines, salutations or signatures"

Microsoft

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Google apologises for racist 'n*gga house' search

Google has apologised for offence caused by vandalism of its Maps tools that meant that users searching for racist terms are being sent White House. In what appears to be a result of Google bombing — where vandals flood a certain keyword with links to a place, meaning that the two will become associated in Google's results — users forced searches for "nigger house" and "nigger king" to redirect to the White House. The search still has the same results, at least two days after it was first noticed

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LG makes ‘wallpaper TV’

LG has shown off a TV than it less than 1mm thick that can be bent and mounted as easily as a piece of wallpaper. The TV is just a concept at the moment, but it hopes that it can eventually make TVs that are mounted simply using magnets, taking up barely any space. It is attached to the wall using a special magnetic mat. The pad is stuck to the wall, and the display itself is then magnetically attached to the pad. It can then be peeled off just as easily

LG Display

Today 66 per cent of Britons own a smartphone, rising to 90 per cent among 16-24s. Only a year ago it was a relatively luxury item, owned by only 39 per cent of adults. The Apple iPhone was the UK’s most popular smartphone brand, especially among the young, while the larger Samsung devices scored highly among older users.

The transformational impact of the smartphone is affecting almost all areas of communication and entertainment. “These devices are becoming more and more an important, vital hub for communication and information throughout the day,” said Jane Rumble, Ofcom’s director of market intelligence.

Smartphone use drove a surge in the growth of average time spent online from 16 hours 54 minutes per week in 2013 to 20 hours and 30 minutes last year. In 2005 the average time was less than ten hours a week.

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But there are concerns that the devices are having a detrimental effect on aspects of human relationships. Ofcom said 59 per cent of people view smartphone use at restaurants in company as “unacceptable”, with 55 per cent taking a dim view of checking the phone while eating communally at home. There was more sympathy with smartphone use when socialising with friends (which 26 per cent thought unacceptable), or while using public transport (which only 5 per cent frowned on).

For 69 per cent meeting family members face to face is preferable to any digital communication and 32 per cent of those aged 16-24 admitted they “spend too much time online” compared to time with friends and family.

A year ago only 39 per cent of adults owned a smartphone (Getty)

The importance of the TV set is suffering, the research found. Television viewing declined for a second year in a row, with the amount watched by children (aged 4-15) tumbling by 12 per cent last year to less than two hours a day.

The smartphone’s rise is propelled by the increased use of 4G mobile broadband, for which subscriptions grew from 2.7 million to 23.6 million in 2014. Users with 4G are more likely to shop online (55 per cent compared to 35 per cent). Ofcom said that 89.5 per cent of premises have access to at least one 4G service, although half a million have no mobile signal.

While over-55s cite the television as the device they would “miss the most”, it is the mobile phone which is most essential to those between 16 and 44. Which indicates that smartphone dependency is set to grow even further – unless something is found to replace it.

Our changing habits

Television

The Ofcom report says, on average, we spent three hours and 40 minutes a day watching televsion on a TV set in 2014 – 11 minutes less than in 2013

Radio

The number of 16-24-year-olds who are streaming music (39 per cent) is now almost the same as the number of those listening to music on the radio (42 per cent)

Birthday greetings

Traditionalists will rejoice: sending an old-fashioned birthday card is still the preferred method (38 per cent) while only 7 per cent send birthday greetings over email